Hockey is a game in which a hard rubber puck is moved around a large playing field by the participants striking the puck with a hockey stick. Although the playing field is usually an ice ring, it also is sometimes a hard permanent surface or a grass area. The hockey stick itself consists of an elongated handle with a blade extending obliquely from one end. The player carries the stick with the blade near the playing surface and makes contact between the blade and the puck at the playing surface.
Because of the hardness and weight of the puck and because of the tremendous forces developed between the blade and the puck at contact, the hockey stick itself must be extremely strong. The requirement that the hockey stick have low swing weight to allow close control of the contact, and the fact that the optimum blade design involves a concave contact surface severely limit the practical designs and construction materials.
Until recently the only practical design involved a wooden blade, normally having several laminations. The blade has contact surfaces on each face, one being concave in curvature and one being convex in order to keep the faces parallel and avoid any unnecessary weight. One difficulty with this configuration of a concave and a convex contact surface, is that, while both surfaces may be used during the course of a game, the concave surface is substantially preferred.
The high expense and physical limitations of the laminated wood hockey stick has resulted in numerous attempts to manufacture the sticks of other materials. The most popular alternative is to make the handle of wood and the blade of molded plastic. It has been found, however, that the use of a plastic with sufficient rigidity and strength to perform the functions necessary adds entirely too much weight to the blade end of the hockey stick. As a result, the plastic substitute forms have been generally confined to the "toy" level. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art devices have been obviated in a novel manner by the present invention.
It is, therefore, an outstanding object of the invention to provide a hockey stick which can be constructed with a low swing weight and low wind resistance.
Another object of this invention is the provision of a hockey stick having a blade which is generally homogeneous in structure and which can be fabricated by simple mechanical methods.
A further object of the present invention is the provision of a hockey stick which is capable of a long life of useful service with a minimum of maintenance.
Another object of the invention is the provision of a hockey stick which has two opposed concave contact surfaces, so that the stick may be used by either a right-handed or a left-handed person.
A still further object of the invention is the provision of a hockey stick which can be made inexpensively by modern mechanized processes.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a hockey stick which has high friction contact surfaces to allow the imparting of controlled contact between the blade and the puck.
With these and other objects in view, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the invention resides in the combination of parts set forth in the specification and covered by the claims appended hereto.